“It wasn't safe,” said George, soberly, “and I should have been glad to go with you.”
Maria laughed. “Well, here we are, safe and sound,” she said. “I didn't see anything to be much afraid of.”
“All the same, they are an awful set there,” said George. They had reached Maria's door, and he added, “Suppose you walk along with me, Miss Edgham, and I will see Lily home.” George had been to school with Lily, and had always called her by her first name.
Maria again felt that little tremor of Lily's arm in hers, and did not understand it. “All right,” she said.
The three walked to Lily's door, and had said good-night, when Lily, who was, after all, the daughter of her mother, although her little artifices were few and innocent, had an inspiration. She discovered that she had lost her handkerchief.
“I think I took it out when we reached your gate, Mr. Ramsey,” she said, timidly, for she felt guilty.
It was quite true that the handkerchief was not in her muff, in which she had carried it, but there was a pocket in her coat which she did not investigate.
They turned back, looking along the frozen ground.
“Never mind,” Lily said, cheerfully, when they had reached the Ramsey gate and returned to the Edgham's, and the handkerchief was not forthcoming, “it was an old one, anyway. Good-night.”
She knew quite well that George Edgham would do what he did—walk home with her the few steps between her house and Maria's, and that Maria would not hesitate to say good-night and enter her own door.